R
EEL STARED DOWN AT THE
man who had been a very “small” part of bringing her into the world. As Robie looked around he saw that everyone in the ward was focused on the pair. He wondered if Earl Fontaine had earlier announced to all here that his only child was coming to see him off to eternity.
He had changed a lot. But not enough to be unrecognizable to Reel. Within the wrinkles and damaged skin and bloated features was clearly the man who had abused her beyond all reckoning. And the man who had killed her mother. And so many others.
She decided to let him keep talking before she said anything.
“I’m so glad you done come, baby girl,” he finally gushed.
“I’m not a baby. And I’m not a girl.”
“Course not, course not, but you was the last time I seen you, Sally.”
“Not my name anymore. And the reason that was the last time you saw me was your own choice. Being murderous scum sort of leaves you with few options. And since you killed my mother there wasn’t really anyone left for me, was there?”
Earl grinned widely at this harsh rebuke. “Still got the sass, that’s for damn sure. Good to see. Choices is right. I made ’em. Now I got to live with ’em. But sure glad you come ’round. Can go easier now.”
“Why?”
“Why? Hell, girl, you the only family I got left. Want to say goodbye right and proper.”
“Is that why you think I’m here? To say goodbye right and proper? Are you that stupid? Or egotistical? Or both?”
Earl waved these remarks off and his grin broadened. “You got every right in the world to hate my guts. I know that. And way back when, you’d be exactly right—I was a bastard. Evil and scum, like you said. But I made my peace. Got nothing left. Except to say goodbye. So you can hate me, got no defense to that. And you got your piece to say to me, I ’spect. So be good for you to get it off your chest. See, that was the other reason I wanted you to come. What I done to you? Despicable. Wrong as wrong can be. You can tell me to go to hell. Where I’m headed anyway. Thought it might help you, you know, to move on.”
“And why would you want that?” asked Reel.
“Never done nothing for you in your whole damn life ’cept cause you pain. You think I don’t know that? This is my one shot to do something other’n that. That’s all.”
“Why? To make you feel better about
yourself
?” barked Reel.
“No, it’s to make you feel better ’bout yourself. So whale away, Sally, or whatever your name is. It’s your turn. Go on, girl.”
“You think me screaming at you will come close to making things even?”
“Ain’t no doubt about it. It won’t.” He paused to wave his hand around the prison ward and then over himself. “But it’s all I done got to give you.”
Reel took a long breath and looked around. Everyone in the ward was staring at her and her father. She glanced at Robie to find his gaze on her. The expression in his eyes was unreadable. She looked back at Earl.
“I thought a lot about what I would say to you.”
Earl grinned expectantly. “I bet you did. Yessiree.”
“And even now I’m not sure what is right or what is wrong.”
“Just wanted to give you a chance to make a choice about it, that’s all. Ain’t no more thinkin’ I done put to it than that. Never even finished high school. I’m a dumb shit.”
“They tell me you’re dying.”
Earl waggled the end of one of his IV lines at her. “Just been hanging on to see you, sweetie.”
“Well, you can stop hanging on.”
She turned to leave.
“Hey, ain’t you want to say your piece to me?”
She looked back. “You’re not worth the time it would cost me, Earl. See, to get mad at you would mean I have to think about you.” She paused. “And I don’t.”
She walked out, leaving Earl looking bemused. He glanced at Robie.
“You her friend?”
“Yes.”
“She’s complicated.”
“Yes.”
“You want to say something to me, you know, like you taking her place?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Just die and get it over with. Let the world have a laugh, Earl. Let ’em have a laugh. You were a badass when you were killing people who couldn’t defend themselves. Even in your prime you couldn’t take down your daughter. You were never in her league.”
“See, that’s what I’m talking ’bout. Tell me off.”
“Yeah, whatever. If I see you on the other side at some point, I’ll kill you all over again. If I want to take the time on a small fry like you.”
Robie turned and followed Reel out.
With a deeply self-satisfied smile Earl dropped back onto his pillow, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.
Reel was already at the car when Robie showed up.
She said, “Well, that was anticlimactic.”
“The important thing was you did it. You saw him. You said what you said and now he’s out of your life. Forever.”
“Thanks for coming with me.”
“On your six, like I said.”
“Did you say anything to him after I left?”
“A few things. Like you said, he’s not worth the breath.”
“He was a monster to me as a little girl. Now he’s just pitiful. I can’t believe I was ever afraid of that pathetic bastard.”
“That’s what growing up does for you. Destroys a lot of monsters.”
“I guess you’re right about that.” She looked off.
“Let’s get out of this hellhole.”
“Sounds good.”
Robie climbed into the car and they drove off.
They didn’t see anyone on the drive back to the airport.
They couldn’t have.
The long-range cameras were too far away. But they took shot after shot of the pair, more than enough, in fact.
And now it had truly begun.
A
RE YOU STILL GOING TO
be doing your job?” Julie asked.
Robie and Reel sat across from her. They had been back from Alabama for several days now and Reel had suggested taking Julie out to dinner to celebrate leaving that part of her past behind. Finally.
They were at the back of a restaurant in Georgetown. There were few patrons in the place, but they still talked in low voices.
“At some point,” said Reel.
“But right now we’re taking a break,” said Robie. “An authorized one this time.”
“Does that mean your last mission went okay?” Julie wanted to know.
Reel and Robie exchanged glances. Reel said, “As well as those sorts of missions go.”
Julie focused on her. “Are you going to take the time to figure some things out?”
“I think I’ve got some of them figured out; at least I’m getting there.”
Robie looked between them. “Am I missing out on something here?”
Julie kept her gaze on Reel. “Just girl stuff.”
Reel cracked a smile at this but then said, “I understand you were in foster care.”
Julie nodded.
“Me too,” said Reel. “Didn’t really work out for me.”
“Me either.”
Reel looked at Robie. “Can you give us a minute?”
Robie slowly nodded. “More girl stuff?”
“Something like that.”
“I’ll take my time in the men’s room. You know,
guy
stuff.”
After he left Reel moved over next to Julie. “I went to see my father in Alabama. Robie went with me.”
“Where does he live in Alabama?”
“Max-security prison. He was supposed to be executed but he got cancer so they couldn’t carry out the death sentence.”
Julie accepted this matter-of-factly and asked, “What did he do?”
“Among other things, he murdered my mother.”
Julie reached out and gripped Reel’s shoulder.
Reel said shakily, “I can’t believe I’m talking to you about this, Julie. One, I don’t really know you that well. And, two, it’s a lot to dump on a kid.”
“I’m old for my age, like I said.” She waited for a few seconds and added, “Why did you go see him?”
“He got a message to me that he wanted to see me before he died.”
“Why?”
“To try and make amends, or so he said. I didn’t believe him. He’s evil, Julie, and evil never changes. It just is.”
Julie had started nodding before Reel finished. “So he didn’t want to make amends. What, then?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe to taunt me. He just grinned and was spewing this simpering crap. I think it was his last shot at me before he croaked.”
“An evil man killed my parents,” said Julie. “Robie knows about it. He stopped the man from killing me.”
“I’m glad he was there for you, Julie.”
“I’m glad he was there for you too.”
“I guess we’re both lucky to have him.”
“But watch out for super agent Nicole Vance. She’s got a thing for him. He won’t believe me when I tell him, but that’s because, despite all the cool stuff he can do, he’s just a clueless guy when it comes to women.”
Reel smiled and then laughed.
“I’ve never heard you laugh before,” said Julie.
“I don’t do it very often,” replied Reel. “But it felt really good.”
“Which logically means you should try and do it more often.”
“I’m not sure logic has much to do with it.”
The two sat in silence for a minute.
“So you went into foster care after what happened to your mom?” asked Julie.
Reel nodded. “But not for long. I got mixed up with some really bad people. Not my fault. They were involved with my foster parents. I didn’t want to be part of it so I worked with the FBI to bring them down.”
“The FBI? How old were you?”
“Not much older than you.”
“Weren’t you scared?”
“Every minute of every day, but there was no alternative. The FBI finally busted them and I got put in Witness Protection. From there I went to CIA. That’s my whole life in a nutshell. And for the record, only a handful of people know.”
“Then I’m flattered you trust me enough to tell me.”
“I don’t trust easily.”
“Neither do I,” said Julie. “But I trust you.”
A minute later Robie returned to the table and sat down. He found both women looking at him so intently that he finally said, “What?”
“Nothing,” they both said together, though Julie giggled and Reel snorted.
They drove Julie home and watched her go inside. When the door closed behind her, Reel said, “That is one special young woman.”
“I got that a long time ago. You two really seem to have hit it off.”
“We’re a lot alike in many ways. When I first saw her you know what I thought?”
“What?”
“That she could be me, only twenty-some years younger.” Reel gazed out the window. “And I thought something else.”
“What was that?”
“That she might make a great recruit for the agency.”
“Not what we do?”
Reel glanced at him and then shrugged. “Maybe not. But she’s got the brains and the intuition to excel as an analyst. She could serve her country well.”
“Maybe. But that’s up to her.”
“What, like it was up to us?”
“We had choices.”
“We had bad choices, Robie. And we picked one. Or at least I did. You know far more about my past than I know about yours. In fact, I know nothing of your past.”
“You know some of it,” he corrected.
“Some,” she agreed. “But far from all.”
“There’s not much to tell. Hardly worth listening to.”
“And how much of that was a lie? All of it or just most?”
“I don’t look back. I look forward.”
“I looked back in Alabama.”
“But not for long. Now you can look forward.”
“And it’s scaring the crap out of me.
My
future.”
When they got back to Robie’s apartment, Robie made some tea for himself and, at her request, poured out a tumbler of Scotch for Reel. They sat and talked until it grew quite late.
“I need to find a place to live,” Reel said as she took a last sip of her drink.
“You’re welcome to stay here until you do.”
“I’m not sure how well that would work.”
“Why not? We just bunked together at the Burner for way too long.”
“There were cameras there, people watching.”
He looked at her curiously. “Not getting your point.”
“I propositioned you on a flight one time, Robie. And got turned down. I don’t like getting turned down. It hurts my pride. I’ll try again. It’s just how I’m wired.”
Robie stared at her. “The refusal had nothing to do with you. I explained that.”
“Exactly. That’s looking in the past. You said we needed to look to the future.”
She rose and held out her hand. “How about we try this again?”
“Are you sure about this?”
“No, but I want to do it anyway.”
Robie was about to stand when his phone buzzed.
“Shit,” exclaimed Reel. “I don’t care if that’s Marks, Tucker, or the president himself. Don’t answer it.”
Robie looked at the phone screen. “It’s Nicole Vance.”
“Then
really
don’t answer it.”
Robie clicked a key and said, “What’s up?”
He grinned at Reel, who was making a slicing motion with her finger across her neck. Then Robie’s grin disappeared.
“On my way.”
He clicked off and looked at Reel, who was now looking deadly serious.
“What?”
“It’s Julie.”
Reel’s mouth sagged. “Julie? What happened?”
“She’s been taken.”
N
ICOLE VANCE MET THEM OUTSIDE
the town house where only hours before Robie and Reel had dropped off Julie. Police cars lined the street and Robie could see FBI wheels parked along the curb. Yellow tape was up everywhere and police officers were holding back curious folks who craned their necks and jostled their neighbors trying to see.
“What happened?” Robie asked.
Vance looked at Reel and then at Robie. “Were you two together when I called you?”
“Yes,” said Robie. “We had taken Julie to dinner and dropped her off. We watched her go inside. Everything seemed fine.”
“Well, it wasn’t,” replied Vance, with another sharp glance at Reel. “Jerome Cassidy managed to call the police.”
“Managed?” said Robie.
“They nearly killed him. I wonder now why they didn’t. The cops in turn called us because it was a kidnapping. We have an Amber Alert out but nothing so far.”
“How did they get to her?” asked Reel.
“Apparently they were waiting for her when she got home. Cassidy was already unconscious.”
“So they broke into the house after we picked Julie up?” said Robie slowly.
“Apparently so,” replied Vance. “They subdued Cassidy and then waited for her to return.”
Reel added, “That means they were watching Julie’s house.”
“Looks to be the case,” said Vance. “We know she might have some enemies,” she added, looking at Robie.
Robie briefly returned the stare and then looked away, his gut suddenly full of acid.
“Any clues to who might have taken her?” asked Reel.
“Forensics team is going over everything right now. Cassidy might be some help once the docs sort him out. But I’m not holding out much hope. Cops say he was pretty garbled when he called 911. And I doubt they left a business card with helpful contact information.”
Reel nodded and glanced at Robie. But her gaze shot back to Vance with the woman’s next words.
“Julie’s phone was left behind. She didn’t drop it. It was on the table in the foyer, like they meant for us to find it. There was a text on it. From the time stamp it had to have been sent about the time she was taken. They’d turned off the auto lock on the phone so we could access it when we got here. It wasn’t addressed to Julie, but to somebody called Sally Fontaine.”
Reel and Robie exchanged a significant glance that Vance did not see because at that moment one of her men came up to her to deliver a report.
Vance finished with him and turned back to the pair. “You said you had dinner with her. Did she say anything that would make you believe she was nervous or scared?”
“No,” said Robie in a distracted tone. “Quite the opposite.”
“Did you see anybody following you?”
“Not that we noticed,” said Reel. “But they wouldn’t have to follow us if they knew where we’d picked Julie up from. They just had to wait for us to bring her back.”
“That’s true,” said Vance wearily. “Poor kid. She’s been through so much hell already. You’d think she’d catch a break.”
Robie said, “Any leads on this Sally Fontaine person? Can you trace where the text came from?”
“Nothing so far, but we’re working on both right now.”
“Why did you call me?” asked Robie.
“It was Julie. I thought you’d want to know. And we looked at her phone calendar. You were listed on there for tonight. Didn’t know it was dinner. But I figured if you had seen her you might have something useful.”
“I’m sorry that I don’t,” replied Robie. He eyed Vance warily. “You want some help on this?”
“Official or unofficial?”
“I think it’s going to have to be the latter.”
She considered this. “I’m okay with that so long as you are completely up front with me about anything you find. I’ll do my utmost to respond in kind.”
Reel said, “Didn’t know the Bureau was so cooperative.”
“Oh, we can be,” retorted Vance. “So long as we’re accorded respect.”
Reel nodded at this but said nothing. Her mind was evidently elsewhere. Then she said, “The text to this Sally Fontaine. What did it say?”
Vance shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“It’s apparently written in code. At least it made no sense to any of us.”
“Can we see it?” asked Robie after Reel gave him a sharp look.
“Why, are you guys codebreakers?”
“I’ve got some experience with it,” said Robie.
“Well, I guess it can’t hurt.”
Vance made a call and about fifteen minutes later one of her agents brought her a written copy of the text. The phone itself was already tagged and bagged and in the Bureau’s evidence truck.
Reel glanced at the paper but showed no reaction.
Robie said, “We’ll take a look at this and get back to you with anything we might have.”
“So, you two are a team again?” asked Vance.
“Of sorts,” answered Reel.
“How about that,” said Vance without a trace of enthusiasm.
Robie said hurriedly, “We’ll be in touch.”
He took Reel by the elbow and turned her away from Vance, ushering her down the street. He looked back once to see Vance staring at them.
Reel did not speak until they got back to the car.
They climbed in and she held up the paper.
“Sally Fontaine,” said Robie.
“They took her because of me,” said Reel, and her voice trembled as she said this.
“You couldn’t have known, Jessica.”
“The hell I couldn’t. It was a setup, Robie, clear and simple.”
“Your father?”
“Wanting me to come and see him so he could say goodbye? What bullshit. Was I a damn idiot?” She slammed her fist against the dashboard. “Shit!” she screamed in fury.
“He was dying all alone in a prison he’d been in for twenty years. Not the sort of guy you worry about.”
She held up the page again. “He wasn’t alone, Robie. He got me down there for a reason.” She added dully, “And this tells me why.”
“You can read that code?”
“I helped
invent
this code.”
He looked at her, stunned. “What?”
“When I was a teenager and working undercover for the FBI.”
“You mean when you’d infiltrated the neo-Nazi group?”
She nodded. “The neo-Nazis needed a safe way to communicate. I helped them come up with this communication protocol. Only they didn’t know I was feeding it to the Bureau at the same time.”
“So this is the same group? I thought they’d been arrested.”
“That was almost twenty years ago, Robie. Many of them are out now.”
“So they used your old man to get to you.”
She gave a hollow laugh. “It was probably his idea, not theirs.”
“So what does it say?”
Reel placed her hand over her eyes.
“Jessica, what does it say?”
She removed her hand and looked at him. “It’s a choice, Robie. It’s an ultimatum.”
“What ultimatum?”
“They’ll release Julie unharmed.”
“And what do they want in return? You? As revenge all these years later?”
“Partly.”
“Partly? What else, then?”
Reel gave a little gasp and Robie saw tears flicker across her eyes.
She composed herself and said, “They want my child.”