Dying for Her: A Companion Novel (Dying for a Living Book 3) (22 page)

1 Day

I
’ve put the last box on a tall stack. Then I look around the storage unit and out across the parking lot. When I am convinced no one is here but me and Gideon, I pull down a small wooden box and open it. The wood is cool to the touch, having rested for years in this locked room. When I lift the lid, it resists, the hinges creaking and dust coating my fingertips.

“That’s your Python?” Gideon asks. He is leaning against the far wall, arms crossed in discontent. He’s trying to show me how mad he is with my decision, but the gun piques his interest nonetheless.

“Yeah, it was my father’s gun,” I say and lift it from the velvet indentation.

“In my country,” Gideon says. “Fathers give their sons goats and wives.”

“Welcome to America,” I tell him and smile because he’s being grumpy enough for the both of us.

I turn the gun over in my hand and feel the metal barrel warming with my body heat.

“My dad believed that this gun was lucky,” I say.

“Who did he shoot?”

“No one,” I say. “He didn’t have to. That is why it’s lucky.”

“Have you shot anyone with it?”

I shake my head. Not yet.

He pushes himself off the far wall and his shoes scuff along the concrete floor. He puts one hand over mine.

“Don’t go tomorrow.”

I look up at the kid, and he is a kid in so many ways. He has a nice beard now, but still so much to learn. And I don’t have the time to teach it to him.

“If someone had you, I’d be there. You, Jesse, Rachel and Jackson. You’re all I’ve got. I would die for any of you.”

Gideon looks down and I can see the red in his cheeks. I don’t know if he’s sad or angry or both. I reach out and pull him into a hug.

“I wasn’t going to tell you where she was,” he says into my leather jacket before prying himself away. “I don’t want to be responsible for your death.”

Now you know how I feel
, I think, but I don’t burden him with that. “Let me explain something.”

I close the box and hand him the Python. He marvels over the gun while I speak.

“Jesse is in this because of me. You are in this because of me. I took her from her family and I took you from yours. The only difference is, I’ve lied to her every step of the way. I didn’t tell her I knew her father or what he is capable of. I didn’t tell her about her sister, who is probably dead by now because neither Jackson nor I have found a single trace of her in ten years. I didn’t even tell her about the angels or powers or give her advice about what she should do to be safe and stay alive. I recruited her because she tied me to Sullivan, and I knew if I kept her close I’d get another shot at him. I needed things to get dangerous for her so I’d have another chance to make things right. The least I can do is save her life after gambling with it, don’t you think?”

“You owe her more than you owe me,” he says. “So you will go to her even though I ask you not to.”

Gideon traces the barrel opening with a long slender finger His dark eyes remain on the gun.

“You have to understand,” I tell him. “I am responsible for all this. I made Caldwell what he is. I led him to Chaplain. I’m the reason he can do the shit he does. I should’ve been the one to plunge a knife in Chaplain’s eye, but I didn’t. This is all on me.”

Gideon looks up at long last. “Let me come with you.”

“No,” I tell him. “I should’ve never put a gun in your hand and taught you to shoot it.”

“It is what I wanted.”

“It doesn’t matter if you wanted it,” I say. “It was wrong. I only took you out of the desert because of Aziz. I felt so damn guilty over what I did to your brother, that I did exactly what your family asked me to do. Only I should’ve sent you to medical school, or law school, or hell—anything respectable.”

“My family does not blame you for Aziz,” he says and gives me back the gun. “I do not blame you for my brother.”

The Python is cold and heavy in my hand. It isn’t alive, not yet.

“I can’t take you,” I say again.

He tries to talk over me. “But I—”

“And,” I intercede. “They’re going to need you after I’m gone.”

His mouth falls open. “Me?”

“You’re smart. You can find out things that others cannot. You have skills that I didn’t have time to teach the kid. Teach her like I taught you. And don’t lie to her like I did. You’ll take good care of my girls when I’m gone.”

He looks ashamed and I realize it may not be shame at all. It may simply be that I’ve put a terrible burden on him. I’ve asked him to sacrifice himself for three women he barely knows.

“I know it is a lot to ask—” I begin.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I am honored. I will do my best.”

I place my hand on his shoulder and he sags under the weight of it.

“You have to tell me what you know,” I say. “Where is this farmhouse?”

Gideon’s face crumples as a cool October breeze blows into the storage unit. “He knows you are coming. He wants you there.”

“I know,” I tell him. “I have to go, Gid.”

You show up when no one else does
, Charlie had said. It’s as true now as ever.

His face softens and his shoulders slump. “You would find out even if I did not tell you. Jeremiah has found her. I am sure even now he is informing Alice and preparing the counterattack.”

“Why would he inform Alice?” I ask him.

“He wants her to trust him,” he says. “He knows that if he wins her trust, he will win Jesse.”

“Why does he want Jesse?” My heart races at the possibility of a threat. Threats that I cannot fight because I just don’t have enough time.

“This is the only answer I have for you,” he says, and I can tell he is trying not to be angry with me on the last day of my life. “You asked me for a way to stop Caldwell. Then do not die. Do not go.”

“Alice and Jackson will go,” I remind him. “I won’t let them go alone.”

Gideon hands over the envelope he has been holding out on me. I already know what is in it. Jesse’s location, which is no doubt connected to that farmhouse from Jackson’s drawing. He found the kid and all the information I asked for on Jeremiah.

“It does not seem he means her harm,” Gideon says when I dump the contents of the envelope onto the stack of boxes beside me. “But there are whispers about the angels amongst his crew.”

“What do you think about all that? Are they really angels? Jackson doesn’t think so.”

“Men have built and destroyed nations believing they were instructed to do so by God,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if the angels are real or not. The outcome will be the same.”

Gideon walks to his car and I wonder if he is simply going to drive away without saying goodbye. I suppose I deserve it. But after he leans into the front seat and grabs something, he heads back.

He hands me another envelope.

“What’s this?” I rip the flap while opening it. Inside is a single, large photograph. The girl in the picture is fourteen maybe fifteen with a blue backpack slung over her shoulder. She’s talking to a woman on her right, a woman who looks just like her—same blond hair, full pouty lips and big bright eyes. Caldwell is walking beside them, his hands in his pockets and a small smile on his lips.

Despite the fact she’s all grown up, I’d recognize those big blue eyes anywhere.

“Maisie?” I ask.

Gideon smiles. “Yes, she’s alive.”

Sunday, July 6, 2003

A
fter I put Jackson’s luggage in the trunk of the Impala, I drove her out to Lambert airport. I parked in the unloading zone outside of the terminal and walked her to the sliding glass doors. We stood in the awkward place where the doors opened for us, and then affronted by our disinterest, closed again, only to open a moment later.

“You’re going to look for him?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “Micah won’t be found until he wants to be. I know he’s changed his name so that there’s no paper trail. Whatever he’s going to do next, he doesn’t want me to know about it. Not yet anyway.”

“You don’t need paper,” I teased her. “You’ve got plenty.”

It was just the kind of corny joke that made Jackson smile. She looked down at the rolled sketches protruding from beneath her arm, the beginnings of her next case.

“Thank you for not shooting me in the head,” she said, over the whoosh of the opening doors.

“Thanks for not shooting me when it looked like that was exactly what I was going to do.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d make the same mistake twice.”

“You have more faith in me than I do.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

“I’ll see you around?”

“You will,” she said with the certainty that only Jackson could pull off.

I helped her adjust her rucksack onto her back, while the doors dutifully stood open. She grimaced, but it’s what she got for leaving the hospital early not once, but twice.

“You need a bag that doesn’t hang off your shoulders,” I lectured for the twelfth time.

“Do I look like the rolling luggage type?” she asked.

I grinned. “No, you don’t.”

“Why do you think they took us off the Sullivan case?” she asked, her face pinched and serious. “If he really was such a serious threat, why do that?”

I didn’t have an answer.

“Maybe someone made them
forget
to look for Sullivan,” she said and adjusted the weight of the pack, favoring her good shoulder.

Made them forget. Like Peaches.

“You know it is my fault he is the way he is,” Jackson said, watching my face for some kind of reaction. “When Micah and I were children, we were kidnapped by our father. Our mother had just left him and he didn’t like it. He killed her and took us to Florida. When the police found us, we were placed in foster care. My aunt took me back, but she did not want my brother, who reminded her too much of our daddy.”

“That’s a shit thing to do,” I said.

Jackson shrugged. “I should have protected him. I could have insisted that we remain in foster care together. Or we could have run away. Anything. I feel like if I had, Micah would’ve turned out differently.”

She started toward the terminal and I expected her to leave without saying goodbye. The doors opened again and she walked through. Before it closed she looked back at me over her wounded shoulder and said: “Those things we’re most ashamed of make us who we are, don’t they? I wonder if this will always be true.”

12:01 A.M.

I could die now. Any minute.

I cannot sleep. I know I should so that my mind will be clear and my body rested.
Rested
. I laugh. There will be plenty of time for that when I’m dead.

It is late, too late for phone calls when my phone rings anyway. I’m expecting a call from Jackson or Alice, the gunshot that starts my last race.

“Hello?”

“I’d tell you not to go,” Rachel says, softly. “But you’ve never been one to follow orders.”

“Oh if that were true,” I tell her. “I’d probably have fewer regrets.”

Her breath is heavy in the phone. “Are you scared?”

“No.”

“You never could lie to me,” she says.

I change the subject. “How are you up so late? Aren’t you locked in your room at a certain time?”

“I’m practicing for tomorrow,” she says. “I may have to take a little trip all by my lonesome, remember?”

“Are you packed?”

“Unfortunately, but I’m still hoping that you’re going to call me in exactly 24 hours and tell me to go back to sleep.”

You and me both
, I think and I realize for the first time it’s true.

I don’t want to die. Not now in the middle of things, with still so much to do.

“Go get our girl,” Rachel says finally, and I think she’s hung up on me. But then I hear her voice, cracking. “Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

“I should’ve done more,” I tell her, rubbing at the ache in my chest with an open palm as I lay on my back in the darkness.

“Shut up,” she says. “You were perfect.”

I have to laugh at that one and she laughs too, even though the sound is choked with her sobs. Then silence stretches across the line between us and I start to wonder if she really has hung up.

Finally, she says: “I love you.”

Of course I say it back.

10:32 A.M.

I
’m standing in Jackson’s hideous yellow kitchen, eating what I am pretty sure is my last meal: A Hawaiian Handful, condiments oozing out one side and a pile of oversalted fries waiting on the wrapper. I don’t go easy on the ketchup or anything else. Heart disease and bikini season are no longer my problems.

It would’ve been perfect if they hadn’t shorted me the extra pickle I asked for. But what can I do? It isn’t like I have time to go back for a refund.

I listen to Jackson pack a bag in the other room. She’s shoving whatever she thinks she needs into the same canvas bag from long ago. It is one of the many reasons I feel like we’ve come full circle—2003 to now. Every so often, she’ll stop stuffing the bag and I’ll hear her flipping pages in her sketchbook the way an attorney might review their notes before a big case.

We don’t talk. We’re both rehearsing the possibilities over and over in our heads. How many times have we drawn our guns this morning? Executed this or that strike? Countless.

The back door swings open and someone’s heels scrub at the carpet. Alice appears, eyes sharp and assessing. To avoid speaking first, I shove my burger into my mouth and take a big bite. She flinches.

As if finally remembering what she came here for, she says, “I want you to meet someone.”

A tall man with a close-cropped beard steps into the room. He pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and puts his hands in his pockets. Before he does, I notice he is not wearing a wedding ring. I wonder if Alice or anyone else knows about the rich wife or where the money for their operation comes from.

It hits me then that I’m not supposed to know who Jeremiah is. I straighten my back and scowl. “Who the hell is this?”

“You asked me what I’ve been doing to piss off Caldwell,” Alice says. She points at the man beside her. Jeremiah manages to look like a refined English professor.

“You’ve been doing this guy?” I’m trying to keep the mood light until I can get a better read on Jeremiah. It hasn’t escaped my notice that he’s holding his cards close. After all, he must know who I am.

“Don’t be idiotic,” Alice bristles. She tucks her hair behind her ears and a light blush fills her cheeks. I’ve probably pissed her off, embarrassed her at least, insinuating that she would sleep with a man. She falls back on her professionalism as always. “This is Jeremiah. He is leading a resistance against Caldwell. And I can see your face, Brinkley, so before you say anything insulting, let me warn you that it isn’t a small operation. He has more connections than you do. Play nice.”

She was right about that. I didn’t have as many friends as the billionaire, or as many toys. But I’d learned long ago that the bigger you are, the harder it can be to get into tight places where most of the work gets done. I had no doubt that Jeremiah found managing his
resistance
exhausting.

I wipe my mouth and smile. “James T. Brinkley.”

We shake.

“Yes, I know,” he says, reflexively. When I arch an eyebrow he adds, “You were Jesse’s handler and liaison for the FBRD.”

I almost laugh. I’ve never heard such a succinct and underdeveloped assessment of my skills. I break his gaze before Alice’s dark eyes can burn a hole in the side of my head. What the hell is she expecting me to do? Hit him? Tell him to shove his resistance up his ass?

Maybe I should have, because who the hell wants to spend the last hours of their life playing nice to a privileged prick in a sweater vest?

I replay my conversation with Jackson. Just this morning she showed me the pictures of the farm, of Jeremiah and Alice and someone who I haven’t met yet—the second in command, Nicole Tamsin. Add these scenes to Gideon’s legwork and I know this is my ride to the farmhouse. My job may only be to distract Caldwell long enough for this motley crew to get our girl back, but I’m taking the job seriously.

“So what’s the plan?” I ask.

Alice goes off immediately about Minooka, Illinois, how we will all take an SUV like one big happy family. I try to convince them to take the Impala, but I am overruled. It hits me then, that I may have driven her for the last time. My stomach drops as I look out the little kitchen window above the sink and see the beautiful sleek black body in the driveway.
This is goodbye, baby.

Reluctantly, I turn my attention back to the conversation and realize I’ve missed something.

“We do not want to go up against him without Jesse,” Jackson says. I hadn’t seen her enter the kitchen. I steal a glance at Jeremiah.

He looks thoughtful. Maybe it’s the sweater vest, or maybe he knows more about what Caldwell is capable of than I gave him credit for.

The Python settles against my lower back. “I have my own gun.”

“We have our own equipment too,” he says and tries to soften his words with a tight smile, as if to say
I’m not better than you just because I’m a filthy rich bastard.
Has he ever killed anyone himself? I wonder.

Just as Jeremiah walks out, Lane walks in. Tall with a slight stoop to his shoulders, blue eyes and dark hair, he looks like a Labrador ready for a car ride.

“No,” I say, before I think my reaction through.

Alice folds her arms across her chest. “He can handle himself.”

I snort. “As well as you can.”

“No more solo missions,” she squeals. Her face ripens with her anger and she dares me to argue with her. “Get this commando crap out of your head. It’s done. We are all together now.”

I snort but bite my tongue. Is that how they’ll handle it when I’m gone? All together?

When I am gone.

Tomorrow.

I wish with everything I’ve got that they will be OK, but another small voice is disappointed by the idea that they don’t need me as much as I’ve needed them.

I breathe and refocus. I try to accept the idea of Lane. He cares about the kid. There’s that. Even if he is about as experienced as the wart on my ass. He thinks he is strong and in control and it’s a joke. The arrogance of youth is dangerous. I told him so in the letter I wrote yesterday, the one I just gave to Jackson not two hours ago and asked her to deliver after I’m gone.

Gone.

Tomorrow.

The realization keeps winding me.

When we nearly died in the basement last year, I asked Lane to look after Jesse. He’d been too eager, too desperate to prove he could. Caldwell would break him like fine china, with relish and delight at the little sounds he’d make while he did it. I know firsthand how he’ll get in that pathetic head of his and make Lane hunt Jesse like a dog.

Just looking at him standing there, his big blue eyes beaming at Alice. I can see the making of their uneasy truce.

Alice I like.

I admire someone who can stay on her game despite her own emotions. I’ve no doubt she wants to kick Lane’s balls in, but she is willing to stomach that desire for the sake of getting Jesse back. She will always put Jesse first. I’ve seen it too many times to believe otherwise.

I take a page from her book and shove my own feelings down, deep. I remind myself that only one thing matters. At the end of the day, Jesse will be safe from Caldwell.

But even as my mind clears, I can’t help but wonder:
Why do you scare him?
I search those defiant brown eyes—defiant and determined.
What about you makes Caldwell count his steps, Alice?

I don’t have much time to find out.