Authors: CJ Lyons
So Goose was okay. Relief rushed over her. “He went for help.”
“It’s been a while,” Lena put in. “And Bernie needs a hospital. His fever’s back.”
“Help him out, Paul.”
Paul didn’t back down. “That’s not going to do him any good if we can’t make it past
those guns.” He gestured to the Reapers outside. Had already dehumanized them. Primal
instincts: us versus them. “Caitlyn, we need a plan.”
She understood. He was a doctor and a man. Every instinct, hormone, strand of DNA
was urging him to take charge of the situation. She lay her palm flat against his
arm, felt the stress tightening his muscles. “I have a plan.” Kinda. Sorta. The beginnings
of one. A plan that would hopefully get them all out of here alive: reapers and civilians
alike. “Trust me, Paul. This is what I do. Tactical situations. Hell, this is what
the Bureau pays me to teach.”
He frowned, his eyebrows pulling together at first in disbelief then surprise. She
kept herself from rolling her eyes. Even after all this time, Paul was like so many
civilians, thought her job was like in the movies: running around in high heels, waving
a gun, catching bad guys before the commercial break, and returning to lounge in a
cushy office filled with expensive gadgets.
“You have a plan.” His tone was uncertain.
“I do. And you have a patient who needs you.” He still hesitated. “Keep him alive
a little while longer, and I’ll get you all out of here alive. I promise.”
Paul knew she never made a promise she couldn’t keep. Part of those control and abandonment
and whatever-else-was-screwed-up-inside-her-psyche issues.
He nodded. Surprised her by pulling her close and kissing the top of her head. “Okay.
I trust you. I believe in you.”
The simple words stole her breath. She couldn’t remember anyone ever saying them before.
Not to her.
Paul grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen from the kitchenette and moved to help Bernie.
Caitlyn raised Poppy’s phone as she took a look out the window. No sign of the lion.
No blood that she could see, either. Lion 1, Reapers 0.
The Reapers had arranged themselves in a semicircle, weapons pointed at the cabin,
but they were arguing about something. Without Poppy or Weasel to lead them, they
were confused about how to best save Poppy.
A few of them were even leaving. Good.
But that still left way too many guns in a way too volatile situation. She needed
more good guys here to contain things. And fast.
She used Poppy’s sat phone and started with the sheriff’s department. Then called
the state police. And finally the FBI office in Asheville, just to let them know what
was going on. Between the three jurisdictions and the mutual aid Sheriff Markle was
calling in from Bryson City and the tribal police, she figured she’d have plenty of
good guys here. Only problem was, it was going to take at least forty minutes before
the first SWAT team could be mobilized and make a safe approach up the mountain—they
couldn’t risk flying in directly, too easy for a Reaper to take down a helicopter.
Who could get here faster? Without the Reapers shooting at them? That had been the
question she’d been wrestling with. Until Poppy provided the solution.
Caitlyn raised the phone once more. “This is FBI Supervisory Special Agent Caitlyn
Tierney. I need to reach the film crew on location for the Reapers’ charity poker
run. No, I can hold. You might want to tell them it’s an exclusive on a hostage situation.
Am I a hostage? No, ma’am. I’m the hostage taker.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Lena curled up beside Bernie, trying her best to look brave for him, to stay calm.
Smokey knew the truth, that Lena was anything but calm, that she was terrified, and
lay her head against Lena’s thigh, patting and rubbing Lena’s back.
Men with guns, men who wanted to kill them—kill her—Bernie so very sick, car chases
and motorcycles and, and, and … it was all too much. She wanted to be home. With her
books. Or in the library. Or talking history with Dr. Bearmeat. Or watching one of
those old TV shows with Bernie. Anywhere but here where she was scared and confused
and lost and alone.
So very, very, alone.
Her mother’s voice filled her head.
Hush, hush. You’re not alone, child. You’re never alone. I’m here and Vonnie and your
Father. Trust in your Father.
Lena knew she was just imaging her mother’s gentle words, but they helped to focus
her. God had saved her. Over and over. He had protected her. Mom was right: Lena had
to trust Him now. Keep the faith. It was the only thing that would save her.
Caitlyn sent the other man, the doctor, to the back of the house. Something about
standing guard. Then she turned and sat on the edge of the bed, looking at Lena with
sorrow in her eyes.
“I remember you when you were still in diapers.”
“You knew my sister.”
“Vonnie was my best friend. Best friend I ever had. I was sorry to hear about her
and your mother.”
Lena looked away, blinked hard. She felt ready to crack like a glass plunged too fast
into hot water. She closed her eyes, steeling herself. Caitlyn was trying to tell
her something, something bad.
Her fears were confirmed when Caitlyn reached past Bernie’s feet and Smokey’s body
to take Lena’s hand. “I saw your father yesterday.”
Lena opened her eyes but couldn’t look at Caitlyn.
“I’m sorry, Lena. He’s dead.”
It took all her energy to absorb the words. Bernie pushed himself up and held her
as she fought to twist Caitlyn’s words into something else, some lie she could hold
on to. Like maybe he was hurt or he was ill, not … but there was no denying what Caitlyn
had really said. Eli was dead.
“How?”
“Stabbed. They caught the men who did it.”
Lena just kept nodding. She couldn’t stop herself. If she tried, she knew she’d fall
apart, never pull herself back together again. She hugged herself, hard, one hand
reaching for Bernie’s. Then Caitlyn pressed something into her other hand. A small
pocket-sized sketchbook. “He wanted you to have this.”
Lena’s fingers tightened so hard around the notebook that she folded it in two. She
sniffed and rubbed her eyes with her free hand, then wiped the tears from her hand
onto her slacks. Bernie pressed his body against hers from behind, Smokey from the
side. Their warmth was comforting. She stared at the notebook. Something of her dad.
She’d never had that before. Never had anything except memories that she’d finally
realized were lies. Lies within lies. What was inside here, the truth at last?
Finally she opened the book, began to flip through the pictures. Her house, their
house, the house her father had built with his own hands. She barely remembered how
it looked when she was a child, but she had visited it every time she returned to
Evergreen, examining every joint and crevice, seeking the man her father was.
She knew every inch of that house as well as she knew the lines that crossed her own
palm. She traced her fingers along the cornice Eli had built in the dining room, the
lines of the octagonal window he’d hung above the front door, the curve of the banister.
Then she stopped. Puzzled.
“This isn’t from our house.” She looked up at Caitlyn, holding the book open to the
unfamiliar drawings. “Why would my father spend so much time drawing these, leave
them here?”
* * *
Caitlyn stared at Lena. “Let me see.”
She sat down beside the girl and took the book from her hand. The pages were in the
last third of the book, mixed in with detail sketches of a stair railing and kitchen
cabinets. She’d missed them when she went through the book last night—she’d been looking
for written clues, not visual ones.
“Look.” Lena pointed. “This one of the fireplace mantel. And here where he does a
detail. And this one looks like it’s zooming in on some kind of carved medallion.
None of this is in our house.”
Caitlyn remembered the Hales’ fireplace: brick from ceiling to floor with a nice thick
plank of heart of pine for the mantel, matching the floors. Nothing like the drawings
here.
“What was he drawing?” Lena asked. “And why?”
It was Caitlyn’s turn to tremble. She held the book so tight her fingerprints smeared
the edge of the page. “I know where this is.”
“Where?”
Caitlyn didn’t answer. Because Lena’s second question was more important. She handed
the book back to Lena and stood to move about the room, checking the windows. Her
plan had to work. They had to get out of here.
Because now she knew why Eli Hale and her father had really died.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Caitlyn returned to Lena. If things went wrong, it was best that they both knew as
many of the facts—and suspicions—as possible.
“We were all looking at whether your dad was guilty or innocent. None of us could
understand why he’d confess and go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit.” She took
Lena’s hand in hers. “You, Lena. He did it to protect you and Vonnie and your mom.
He did it to save you.”
“How do you know that?” Lena looked up at her, confused.
“It’s the truth, Lena. I’m certain of it.”
“My father did what he did to save his family?” Lena was crying, slow, silent tears
that she didn’t even seem to be aware of. “I wish he could have told me. I was so
angry at him for so many years. The last time I saw him—” She buried her face in her
hands.
Caitlyn stared, unsure if she should tell Lena the whole truth or if it would upset
her more. How could she comfort the girl? Bernie came to her rescue, holding Lena
tight against his chest while she wept. A few minutes later Lena sniffed hard, swallowing
her tears, and looked up. “If my father didn’t kill that man, then who did?”
“Good question, but not the right one. The who doesn’t matter as much as the why.”
Caitlyn paused as she spotted movement at the edge of the yard. She stared into the
darkness but couldn’t make out anything solid. But they were out there. They’d be
coming. Soon. She had to give Lena the info she needed and get her and Bernie to safety.
“Then why was Tommy Shadwick killed?” Lena asked.
“Everyone thought it was because he opposed your father’s request that the Hale family
be reinstated to the tribal rolls as freedmen. Then I thought it was really because
Tommy opposed the casino and your dad was just a fall guy. But I think he died for
the same reason your father was kept alive all those years.”
“Kept alive?” Lena sounded angry. Good, she’d need that strength to get through this.
“My father was kept in a cage with men who were animals for the past twenty-five years
for a crime he didn’t commit. You’re talking like it was all some game he was there.”
“Think about it, Lena. Once Eli was convicted, why not have him killed as soon as
he got to prison? Why risk him saying the wrong thing to the wrong person all those
years?”
“But you said he went to save us. They had what they wanted, a fall guy for their
crime. Why not just leave him alone?”
“No. He was a risk. They gave him what he wanted: his family’s safety. But he had
some kind of leverage on them. And it all had to do with Tommy Shadwick.”
“He had proof that he was innocent?”
“No. He had proof about why Tommy had to die. He had the Freedmen Pact. The original.
And he hid it for you to find after he died.”
“Wait. The pact burned with Tommy’s house.”
“No. That’s why they torched Tommy’s house. They couldn’t find it—but a few slips
of paper, it’d take days to properly search a house. They knew Tommy was the last
person who had it, so they took a chance and burned the house down thinking they’d
destroyed the pact along with any evidence they were there. Except of course your
dad’s hammer. They planted that in his truck since everyone knew he and Tommy’d had
been arguing earlier that evening. Your dad was the perfect patsy.”
“But why is the pact so important? All it would prove is that my family signed away
their right to ever be full tribal members. It has nothing in it that anyone would
kill for.”
“The version you have has nothing in it that anyone would kill for. It says that the
freedmen’s land is in the northeast edge of the reservation.”
“Yeah. Right across from here,” Bernie put in. “My dad said that’s why the Teddy Roosevelt
never got off the ground—no place to expand to with the res boundary and the park
boundary sandwiching it in.”
“That’s what everyone thought. And who would tell them otherwise? No freedmen have
actually lived on that land since after the Civil War when they moved down into town
to make a living at the lumber mills or moved out of the area altogether. It was a
new era; they could live where they wanted. Why stay on a ragged piece of mountain,
right?”
They both nodded, still confused.
“Wrong. The real freedmen land deeded to them in perpetuity by the pact was in the
southeast corner of the reservation. Not the northeast. Best I can tell the change
was made in the existing copies of the pact—the ones you got from Raleigh and from
Mr. Bearmeat, Lena—in the mid- to late 1980s.”
Bernie still looked puzzled, but Lena’s eyes grew wide as she realized the implications.
“The casino. That’s where the VistaView is. And the Indian Gaming Act was passed in—”
“Nineteen eighty-eight.”
Lena left Bernie on the bed and sprang to her feet with fresh energy. “They knew the
act was going to pass, and they knew the tribal council wanted the casino as far from
Cherokee as possible. Putting it on the eastern boundary put it closer to the interstate
and tourists and…” She swung her head to stare at Caitlyn.
“And Evergreen. Where my uncle Jimmy happened to own all that worthless real estate,
just sitting there, waiting for something to come along and make it worth developing.
Something like a huge resort and casino. I’m sorry, Lena. I think Jimmy might be involved.”
“He killed Tommy?”