Into the Fire (18 page)

“Are you allowed to drive?” he typed.

“Probably not,” she said. “My license expired—I haven’t tried to renew it.”

“If your L expired, the answer would be a NO, not PROLY NOT,” he typed.

“Too bad I’m no longer a police officer,” she told him, “so I can’t arrest myself.”

“Ha ha,” he wrote.

Yeah, she was a real comedienne.

Sunday’s e-mail from Dave was a little different.

Hannah,

In case you haven’t heard—Tim Ebersole of the Freedom Network is dead.

“Holy God,” Hannah said.

Dave had included a link to a
New York Times
article, and Murphy bogarted the mouse in order to click on it as quickly as possible.

The news article appeared on the screen, and they both leaned forward, shoulder to shoulder, to read it.

Ebersole had been found in a remote part of the Freedom Network’s compound, in the mountains east of Sacramento. Shot in the head. The murder weapon was believed to be a sniper rifle. The killer was believed to have military training. An investigation was under way.

“Now we know why Crazy Dave’s been looking for me,” Murphy typed.

“I’ll let him know that you’ve been here with me,” Hannah said through her relief, reaching to regain control of the mouse, clicking back to Dave’s e-mail so that she could hit reply.

But Murphy covered her hand with his own. She looked at him, in surprise, but he was shaking his head. “I don’t want you to…”

“What?” It looked as if he’d just said “life for me.”

He typed the words. “I don’t want you to lie for me.”

Lie? Hannah still didn’t get it. “You’ve been here for two weeks—”

Murphy typed: “TE was killed four months ago.”

Oh,
shit.
She must’ve been reading too fast. She went back to the article and…Yeah, there it was.

Holy God.

And there they sat. In silence. As Hannah’s heart thumped unsteadily in her chest. All of the relief that she’d felt—that Ebersole had gotten his just desserts without Murphy having to spend the rest of his life in prison—had morphed into fear.

Holy God…

Then Murphy reached over and sent the article to the printer. Apparently, he wanted a hard copy. His fingers flew over the keyboard again. “It’s okay if you ask me.”

She looked at him, looked into his eyes, searching for answers. If they were there, she couldn’t see them.

“It’s okay,” he told her, also signing it. He typed again, “I know what you’re thinking. I’m thinking it, too.”

“I’m not sure what to ask you,” Hannah admitted. “Did you do it, Murph? Or maybe I should ask, How did you manage to get away?”

Murphy laughed, but his smile quickly morphed into a grimace. And he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“I don’t know,” he typed, as the muscle jumped in his jaw.

“Don’t know what?” Hannah asked, her heart in her throat.

“Don’t know if I did it,” he typed, “and if I did, I don’t know how I got away.”

L
AS
V
EGAS
, N
EVADA

“God damn it, Eden!”

Danny was back. Eden heard him coming into the house, even from the confines of the tiny bathroom where she’d been locked for the past few hours.

There was no window, no chance of escape.

Her wicked stepfather, Greg, had manhandled her in here after she’d thrown a chair through the bedroom window, hoping to attract the attention of the neighbors—let them know that she was being held against her will.

Not that she necessarily had anywhere else to go.

She now sat on the floor, trying not to cry, rubbing her stomach as Pinkie did somersaults inside of her.

It had all gone down, of course, while her mother was at work and her little brother Ben was at school.

“What the hell happened here?”

She could hear Danny’s voice, and the lower rumble of Greg’s as he no doubt expounded on what a
reasonable
idea it was for Eden to give up her baby for adoption—that there were people who would make a generous donation toward her college fund,
and
pay all of her hospital bills as well as her expenses for the next three months, in return for a healthy, white infant.

All she had to do was sign her name, and in three months she’d have her life back.

But the life she wanted back was the one she’d started to make for herself in Germany, while her father was away. A life that included this baby. Her baby.

But Greg had stood there, with a pen in his hand, and she’d laughed in his face and asked him what exactly was his percentage in this baby-selling deal. How many tens of thousands of dollars would
he
walk away with?

He didn’t deny it. He’d just gotten angry and threatened to cut off all food and water until she signed the papers.

And even though Eden knew that his threat would last only until her mother came home, she’d panicked. And she’d launched that chair out of the window. Greg had slapped her hard across the face, and she’d scratched him, drawing blood.

No doubt he was now telling Danny that
she’d
attacked
him.
But there were other voices out there, too. Not her mother or Ben, but…

“You locked her
where
?”

Dear God, was it possible…?

“Unlock this door
now,
or I’m calling 911—” the voice got louder “—because you’re gonna need an ambulance after I beat the living shit out of you!”

Eden awkwardly pushed herself up to her feet.

The heavy-duty deadbolt that Greg had put on the door rattled and clicked and the door swung open and…

Izzy Zanella was indeed standing in the hallway, looking in at her.

He was bigger and wider than she remembered, but dressed almost identically to the way she’d left him, all those months ago. T-shirt and cargo shorts. Boots on his feet. His hair was longer and his tan was darker, as if he’d recently spent a lot of time outside.

He looked unbelievably good—strong and solid and beyond pissed at Greg for locking her in here.

“Hey,” he said, as if he’d run into her at the mall.

“Hey,” she said, her heart doing a sudden nosedive as she realized that he hadn’t come to save her. He’d come because she’d told her brother that this baby she was carrying was Izzy’s. The pissed-off she was reading on him probably wasn’t entirely directed toward her wicked stepfather.

She honestly hadn’t expected him to show up here—to come all the way to Las Vegas. She’d expected him to deny it. To insist on a paternity test. To tell Danny that Eden was lying.

To buy her a little more time to figure out what she was going to do.

“You got a suitcase or something?” Izzy said now. “Because I’m thinking that while we’re talking? You should probably pack.”

His words didn’t make sense. This was where he was supposed to accuse her of lying. And he wanted her to…“Pack?” she echoed stupidly.

He held out his hand to her. And he made a face that she realized was an attempt at a smile. Beneath it though, he was really,
really
angry.

But not at her.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said. “Let’s go pack your things. I’m getting you and Izzy Junior the hell out of this shithole.”

Eden couldn’t help herself. She started to cry.

C
HAPTER
N
INE

E
den had done one heck of a job on the window. Izzy stood in the bedroom that she’d been sharing with the youngest of the Gillman siblings, checking out the damage as she hurriedly threw her clothes into a duffle.

Her tears had lasted all of ten seconds—she was as tough as he remembered—and she’d left her bathroom prison with her head held high.

He was the one who had almost been undone.

The still-angry-looking hand-sized mark on her face had blinded him with anger—as if locking a pregnant woman in a tiny bathroom, with no place to sit comfortably or lie down, with no food for hours, wasn’t bad enough.

“I don’t expect more from you than a ride to San Diego,” she told him now, as she zipped her bag. “I just want you to know.”

Izzy turned to look at her. She’d put her hair back into a ponytail, and with her face scrubbed clean of any makeup, she looked about twelve. Except for the pregnancy thing. She was wearing running shorts and a T-shirt that was stretched tightly across her expanded abdomen.

Holy shit, there was a baby growing in there.

“Most women expect child support from their baby-daddy,” he pointed out.

She made a face. Lowered her voice as she glanced toward the door that was ajar. “We both know that you’re not the father, so just…don’t.”

“Why did you tell Dan that I was?”

Eden sighed heavily and sat down on the edge of the bed. There were dark circles beneath her eyes—it was clear she was exhausted. “I was trying to stall for time. I figured you knew it wasn’t you, so…I really didn’t think you’d come all this way.”

“Danny nearly broke my nose,” Izzy told her, and her aghast dismay made him laugh. “I’m fine,” he added. “But really, Eden, what did you think he was going to do? Buy me a cigar?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t…I just…I’m so sorry.” She lowered her voice even more. “I didn’t want him going after Jerry.”

And…great. Six months in Germany apparently hadn’t done the trick in curing her of her misguided affection for this dickweed. “So…Jerry’s the father.”

“No,” Eden told him wearily. “Jerry’s sterile. But he knows the father. And he’d figure it out. And he’d tell Danny, and then Danny would end up dead.”

Izzy sat down next to her. “Dangerous guy, huh?”

“Extremely.” She exhaled loudly. “I’m worried about more than Danny, okay?
I’m
afraid of this guy. I don’t want anything to do with him, and I
really
don’t want him to know he’s got any connection to my baby. He’s a pig—I don’t want him in my life.”

She held onto her extended stomach as if she were cradling the baby that was swimming around inside of her.

“So…what are your plans?” he asked.

Eden gave him a look. “Why do people always say that when what they really want to know is whether or not I’m going to keep the baby? And yes, I’m keeping him.”

“Papa don’t preach,”
Izzy sang. “My apologies for being pedestrian. I was just…we have a thing in the teams—
never assume.
I was actually trying to be polite. So
him.
He’s a boy, huh?”

Eden smiled at his change of subject and it lit her up.

“He’s a boy,” she verified.

“He got a name?”

Eden nodded, but then shook her head. “Just a nickname, really. I call him Pinkie.”

“What?” Izzy pretended to nearly fall off the bed. “Are you kidding? Do you
want
him to be gay?”

She laughed. “I don’t care about that. I just want him to be healthy.”

“Okay,” Izzy said, “because Pinkie isn’t just gay, he’s, like, the kid everyone beats up in the cafeteria. Which is
very
unhealthy for him. Believe me, I’m a veteran expert when it comes to bad names for children.”

As she kept on laughing, some of the despair in her eyes faded. “It’s just his
in utero
name. It was actually…well, see, at first I thought he was a girl. But then, at the ultrasound…Penis! It was kind of a surprise. It was pretty funny, too. The technician just kind of shouted it. Like that.
Penis!
”

“People are always shouting that at me, too,” Izzy said, and Eden laughed again. “So me and Pink already have something in common.”

As she met his eyes, there it was—that freaking electric shock. She felt it, too, because she immediately looked away, her laughter quickly fading.

“So,” Izzy said, because this seemed as good a time as any. “Wanna get married?”

She exhaled and rolled her eyes.

“I’m serious,” he said.

She looked at him sharply, and it was a classic Gillman
Zanella, are you out of your fucking mind?

It was entirely possible that he was. And yet, this seemed like the perfect temporary solution.

“Danny already thinks the baby’s mine,” he told her with a shrug. “This keeps Richie from killing him, right?”

Izzy could tell from her silence and from the look on her face, that she was stunned that he’d figured it out. Or maybe she was stunned that, after all this time, he remembered the name of Jerry’s lowlife, scum-sucking boss.

He could see her weighing her options. She was considering whether she should try to lie her way out of this.
Richie? What are you, kidding? It’s not Richie’s baby.

Maybe impending motherhood had mellowed her, or maybe she already simply knew Izzy well enough, even after six months spent on opposite sides of the world. She opted instead to throw herself on his mercy. “Please don’t tell Danny.”

“I won’t,” he promised.

And now she was worried for another reason. “It’s not what you’re thinking—me, with Richie. It wasn’t—”

“I’m not thinking anything,” Izzy said. “Except maybe that you and Pinkie could use some health insurance and a place to stay for a while. And maybe a misleading last name on the birth certificate for the Pinkman. Like, you know. Zanella.”

She didn’t say a word. She just sat there, looking at him, tears welling in her eyes.

“It would only be a temporary, short-term thing,” he reassured her. “Just until you get back on your feet. And you’re not the only one who benefits,” he pointed out as he took her hand from her lap, interlacing their fingers. Her nails were short and bitten—damn, she was young. “I get a double win. Danny no longer punches me in the face. And I get to piss him off by becoming his brother-in-law.”

She laughed, but it was decidedly low energy.

“Look,” Izzy told her. “I’m gone a lot. And the apartment’s big enough so that even when I am around…You can have your own space. And if you want to, you know, pull your weight, you could do the laundry every now and then. That kind of thing. We could take turns cooking. You one night, Pinkie the next, then me…”

“Pinkie has to cook?” she said.

“Boy’s gonna be gay, he should learn his way around the kitchen.” Izzy smiled back at her. “Under your supervision, of course.”

It was then that Gillman knocked on the door. It couldn’t have been anyone else out there—his impatience was evident in each sharp rap.

“Congratulate me, fishboy,” Izzy said as the door swung open, as he gazed into Eden’s still-anxious eyes. “Your beautiful sister and I are getting married and having us a baby.”

S
OUTH OF
S
ACRAMENTO
, C
ALIFORNIA

Sacramento was going to be plenty familiar.

Murphy braced himself for that.

All it meant was that he’d been there before—plenty of times, in fact.

He had friends in the area—one a former Marine buddy. Years ago he wouldn’t have thought twice about crashing at Paul’s place when he was in town. But he honestly didn’t know if he’d seen Paul and his partner Steve over the past six months.

Hannah’d text-messaged them, asking when they’d last seen Murph, but hadn’t yet received a reply.

Murphy also had a low-rent motel on his list of frequently visited locations—for when he didn’t want to sleep on Paul’s lumpy couch.

Favorite restaurants, favorite bars—these were all places that he and Hannah needed to check in their quest to find out whether or not he’d been in Sacramento during the last week of March, when Freedom Network führer Tim Ebersole had been sent, express, to hell.

Murphy’s hands tightened on the steering wheel of Patrick’s ancient VW Rabbit as they headed north.

He would think he’d have at least a sliver of memory, if he had, indeed, shot and killed Ebersole.

The weight of the sniper rifle in his hands.

The unmistakable scrape of the slide as it chambered the round.

The stalk—waiting, possibly even for days, for his target to move into range.

Ebersole’s hatred-inducing face, through the scope.

The recoil—and the rush of satisfaction that had surely come…

Murphy wasn’t exactly certain what he was hoping he and Hannah would find when they arrived in Sacramento—a lack of evidence that would send them searching elsewhere for an alibi, or hard evidence that he had, indeed, been there, that he might well be the man the FBI was looking for.

“You’re going to have to set these so they don’t ring,” Hannah said from the front seat, where she was looking at the disposable cell phones they’d picked up as they’d passed through Fresno. They’d gotten them so that they wouldn’t have to use their own phones, so that they’d be truly anonymous even when making calls. “I think I’ve done it, but you’ll need to check ’em.”

She set them in the little car’s cup holder.

She’d loaded the trunk and the backseat of the Rabbit with camping gear. Sleeping bags. Air mattresses because, as Hannah had pointed out, “I’m not twenty-two anymore.”

No, she was an ancient twenty-nine.

They didn’t discuss it in so many words, but it was very clear that they both knew they weren’t going to stop at any motels. They also weren’t going to buy gas or any additional supplies with anything other than cash.

This little trip they were taking was completely under the radar—assuming that, living in isolation at Patrick’s cabin, they’d been on anyone’s radar to start with.

Hannah hadn’t responded to any of Dave Malkoff’s e-mails. She had, however, packed up her laptop. Sacramento had plenty of coffeeshops with free wireless. Not that they’d necessarily e-mail Dave from there, either, though.

Because all it would take was one e-mail, and Dave—or Tess Bailey, who was Troubleshooters’ computer specialist—would be able to track them.

At this point, the best Tess could do was to trace a three-month-old e-mail that Hannah had said she’d sent to Dave from the Dalton public library in early March.

But Murphy had no doubt that, if Dave really, truly wanted to find them, he would. Even though the cabin was a solid twenty-five miles from that library, it was only a matter of time before Dave and the rest of his Troubleshooters team pulled up the cabin’s dusty drive. Which was another reason he and Hannah had bugged out.

Dave had made clear his mission, in the last of his many e-mails. He wanted Murphy to turn himself in, to answer the FBI’s questions.

It didn’t, however, make a hell of a lot of sense to do that until Murphy’s answers were more than
I don’t know
and
I can’t remember.

Hannah took out a battered spiral notebook and clicked open a pen. “This is going to suck,” she said, “but we’ve got to talk about where you’ve been over the past few months. See if we can’t fill in some of your blanks. It’s probably best to work backward, starting with what we
do
know. First, that Ebersole was believed to be killed on or around March fifteenth.” She wrote that date on the top of the page, underlining it twice.

Murphy glanced at her. “Before I came, you know, back, I was in…well, it wasn’t really rehab,” he said. “But it was a program that…helped. I checked myself in on my birthday actually. April twenty-fourth.”

Hannah was surprised. “You were in for two and a half months?”

“I was there for a month as a participant,” he told her now. “The rest of the time I was sort of semi-staff. I pretty much stayed until they kicked me loose.”

Hannah wrote down
April 24th through July 9th,
which was the day he’d returned to Dalton, over two weeks ago. “I don’t mean to pry, but…”

“It’s called Fresh Start. It’s in San Diego,” he told her. “And yeah, they’ll have a record of my being there.”

She nodded. “Was it…” She stopped herself. “If you don’t want to talk about this, you don’t have to, but…I’ve never heard of it and…”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind. It’s a new program, put in place by a veterans’ rights organization,” he told her. “They focus on grief counseling, as well as overcoming substance abuse and PTSD.” She frowned, and he spelled the acronym for her before she could say
what?

“While you’re there,” he continued, “you kind of take it slow and…I guess learn to live again. It’s all done through private funding, and it’s non-faith-based, so you don’t have to feel browbeaten into drinking the Kool-Aid. I mean, there’re church services if you want to go but…I actually found the Eastern Philosophy classes useful.”
Zen
he spelled for her. And
Buddhism
—except he never did know where to put that H. She nodded, though.

“Long story short, the program helped,” he said again.

“I’m glad,” Hannah said. “It’s really nice to have you back. You know, you. Not crazy-angry you.”

Murphy glanced away from the road and over at her again. “I may not be crazy-angry, but I’m pretty sure I’m not me anymore, Han.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Hannah said. “But you’re still my best friend, whoever you are.” She looked back at her notebook. “So. April twenty-fourth, you were in San Diego, checking in to this program. Let’s work backward. Where were you on April twenty-third?”

S
AN
D
IEGO
, C
ALIFORNIA

About an hour ago, Decker had come flying out of Tom’s office—where Jo Heissman was holding court—like his ass was on fire.

He went into his office and shut the door—something he rarely ever did.

So Dave waited.

And waited. But the door stayed tightly shut. And then Dave couldn’t wait any longer. So he knocked.