Everything went bright, as if the sun burst through the pounding rain. “You’re going to stay.”
“I repeat, it’s your birthday. No way I’m missing out on ice cream and cake. We’ll wait for the others for eats, but I think you should open your gifts now.”
“Really? It’s all right?”
“Obviously, the genius doesn’t comprehend the power of birthday. Here.” Terry pushed the box into Elizabeth’s hands. “Open mine. I’m dying to see if you like it.”
“I like it already.” And she began to carefully slit the tape.
“I knew it. She’s one of those. One of those,” Terry explained, “who takes ten minutes to open a gift instead of ripping away.”
“The paper’s so pretty. I didn’t expect anything.”
“You should,” John told her. “You should start expecting.”
“It’s the best surprise.” After folding the paper, Elizabeth lifted the lid. She lifted out the thin cardigan with ruffles flowing down the front and tiny violets scattered over the material.
“It’s beautiful. Oh, there’s a camisole with it.”
“That’s not your mother’s twin set,” Terry declared. “You can wear it with jeans, or dress it up with a skirt. It looked like you.”
No one had ever told her she looked like ruffles and violets. “I love it. I really love it. Thank you so much.”
“My turn. I had a little help picking these out. So if you don’t like them, blame my wife.”
“She helped you? That was so nice of her. You have to thank her for me.”
“Maybe you should see what it is first.”
Flustered, thrilled, Elizabeth dug into the tissue paper for the little box. The earrings were a trio of thin silver drops joined together by a tiny pearl.
“Oh, they’re wonderful. They’re beautiful.”
“I know you always wear those gold studs, but Maddie thought you might like these.”
“I do. I love them. I don’t have anything but the studs. I got my ears pierced the day before … the day before. These are my first real earrings.”
“Happy seventeen, Liz.”
“Go, try it all on,” Terry ordered. “You know you’re dying to.”
“I really am. It’s all right?”
“Birthday power. Go.”
“Thank you.” Riding on the thrill, she wrapped Terry in a hug. “So much. Thank you.” Then John. “I am happy. I’m happy seventeen.” She clutched her gifts and raced for the stairs.
“It’s a hit.” Terry let out a long sigh. “She hugged. She never hugs.”
“Never got them. I gave her mother the secure-line number—again. Told her we were going to get Liz a cake for her birthday, and we’d make arrangements to bring her in for it. She declined. Politely.”
“A polite bitch is still a bitch. I’ll be glad when this is over for her, you know? And for us. But I’m going to miss that kid.”
“So am I. I’m going to call Maddie, let her know Liz liked the earrings.” He glanced at the time. “I’ll call in, check on Cosgrove’s and Keegan’s ETA. I expected to hear they were en route by now.”
“I’ll set the table, see if I can fancy it up a bit, make it celebrational.”
She got out plates and flatware, and thought of flowers. “Hey, John?” On impulse, she moved toward the living room. “See if Cosgrove can make a stop, pick up some flowers. Let’s do it up right.”
He gave a nod of assent, continued to talk to his wife. “Yeah, she loved them. She’s upstairs putting them on. Hey, put the kids on. I probably won’t be home till they’re in bed.”
Terry walked back into the kitchen, thinking she should sample a little of that red sauce, just to make sure it passed muster. Even as she reached for a spoon, John called out.
“They’re rolling in now.”
“Copy that.” One hand on her weapon out of habit, Terry went to the garage door, waited for the signal. Three quick knocks, three slow.
“You guys are in for a treat. We’ve got—”
Bill came in fast. “We may have some trouble. Where’s John?”
“In the living room. What—”
“Bill thinks he spotted a tail,” Keegan said. “Where’s the witness?”
“She’s …” Something wrong. Something off. “Did you call it in?” she began, and pulled out her phone.
She nearly dodged the first blow, so it skated down her temple. Blood slid into her eye as she went for her weapon, shouted to John.
“Breech!”
The butt of Keegan’s gun smashed viciously across the back of her head. She went down, overturning a chair with a crash in the fall to the tiles.
Weapon drawn, John flattened against the wall in the living room. He needed to make the stairs, get to Liz.
“Don’t shoot him,” Keegan said quietly as he holstered his own gun and took Terry’s. “Remember, we don’t want any holes in him.”
Bill nodded. “I got him, John. I got the bastard. Terry’s down! She’s down! Keegan’s calling it in. Secure the wit.”
John heard Keegan’s voice over the drum of rain, rapidly relaying the situation.
And he heard the creak of a floorboard.
He came out, weapon up. He saw Bill moving on him, saw his eyes. “Drop your weapon. Drop it!”
“Terry’s down! They’re going to try for the front.”
“Lower your weapon, now!”
John saw Bill glance to the left, pivoted, elbowed back before Keegan could land a blow. As John dived to the right, Cosgrove fired. The bullet caught his side, burned like a brand. Thinking of Elizabeth, he returned fire as he raced for the stairs. Another bullet hit his leg, but he didn’t slow. He caught a glimpse of Keegan moving into position, fired on the run.
And took a third bullet in the belly.
His vision grayed, but somehow he kept moving. He caught sight of Elizabeth running out of the bedroom.
“Get inside. Get back inside!”
He lurched forward, shoving her in, locking the door before he fell to his knees.
“Oh my God.” She grabbed the shirt she’d just taken off, used it to apply pressure to his abdomen.
“It’s Cosgrove and Keegan.”
“They’re marshals.”
“Somebody got to them.” Teeth gritted, he risked a look at his belly wound, felt himself slipping. “Oh, Jesus. Maybe they’ve been dirty all along. Terry. She’s down. Maybe dead.”
“No.”
“They know I’m in here with you, that I’ll fire on anyone who tries coming in the door.” As long as he could hold a weapon. “But they know I’m hit.” He gripped her wrist with his left hand. “It’s bad, Liz.”
“You’ll be all right.” But she couldn’t stop the blood. Already her shirt was soaked through, and it just kept pouring out of him, flooding like the rain. “We’ll call for help.”
“Lost the phone. Keegan, he’s got connections—in the service, he’s connected. He’s moved up fast. Don’t know who else might be in it. Can’t know. Not safe, kid. Not safe.”
“You have to lie still. I have to stop the bleeding.” Pressure, she told herself. More pressure.
“They should have rushed me. Planning something else. Not safe. Listen. Listen.” His fingers dug into her wrist. “Gotta get out. Out the window. Climb down, jump down. But get out. You run. You hide.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You’re going. Get your money. Can’t trust the cops, not now. More in it. Have to be. Get your money, what you need. Fast. God damn it. Move!”
She did it to keep him calm. But she wouldn’t leave him.
She stuffed the money in a bag, a few items of clothing at random, her laptop.
“There. Don’t worry,” she said. “Someone will come.”
“No, they won’t. I’m gut shot, Liz, lost too much blood. I’m not going to make it. I can’t protect you. You have to run. Get my secondary weapon—ankle holster. Take it. If one of them sees you, comes after you, use it.”
“Don’t ask me to leave you. Please, please.” She pressed her face to his. He was so cold. Too cold.
“Not asking. Telling. My job. Don’t make me a failure. Go. Go now.”
“I’ll get help.”
“Run. Don’t stop. Don’t look back. Out the window. Now.”
He waited for her to reach it. “Count to three,” he ordered as he crawled for the door. “Then go. I’ll keep them off you.”
“John.”
“Make me proud, Liz. Count.”
She counted, slid out. She gripped the gutter as rain lashed against her face. She didn’t know if it would hold her, didn’t think it mattered. Then she heard the volley of gunfire, and shimmied down like a monkey.
Get help, she told herself, and began to run.
She was less than fifty yards away when the house exploded behind her.
This above all—to thine own self be true.
And it must follow, as the night the day.
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
7
Arkansas, 2012
SOMETIMES BEING THE CHIEF OF POLICE IN A LITTLE TOWN tucked into the Ozarks like a sleepy cat in the crook of an elbow just sucked right out loud.
As a for instance, arresting a guy you played ball with in high school because he grew up to be an asshole. Though Brooks considered being an asshole a God-given right rather than a criminal offense, Tybal Crew was currently sleeping off several more than one too many shots of Rebel Yell.
Brooks considered overindulging in whiskey, on occasion, another God-given right. But when that indulgence invariably caused a man to stumble home and give his wife a couple of good, solid pops in the face, it crossed the line to criminal offense.
And it sucked. Out loud.
And it sucked louder yet as sure as daisies bloomed in the spring, Missy Crew—former co-captain of the Bickford Senior High School cheerleading squad—would rush into the station before noon, claiming Ty hadn’t clocked her, oh no. She’d run into a door, a wall, tripped on the stairs.
No amount of talk, sympathy, annoyance, charm, threats would persuade her—or him—they needed some help. They’d kiss and make up as if Ty had been off to war for a year, likely go home and fuck like rabid minks.
In a week or two, Ty would get his hands on another bottle of Rebel Yell, and they’d all go around again.
Brooks sat in his preferred booth at Lindy’s Café and Emporium, stewing over the situation as he ate breakfast.
Nobody fried up eggs and bacon and home fries like Lindy, but the fat and grease and crunch just didn’t cheer Brooks up.
He’d come back to Bickford six months before to take on the job as chief after his father’s heart attack. Loren Gleason—who’d tried to teach Ty Crew and just about every other high-schooler the mysteries of algebra—bounced back. And with the nutrition and exercise regimen Brooks’s mother had put the poor guy on, he was healthier than he’d likely been in his life.
But still, the incident had left Brooks shaken, and needing home. So after a decade in Little Rock, a decade on the Little Rock PD, the last five as a detective, he’d turned in his papers and scooped up the recently open position of chief.
Mostly, it was good to be home. He hadn’t known how much he’d missed it until he’d moved back full-time. It occurred to him that he’d probably say the same about Little Rock, should he ever go back, but for now, Bickford suited him just fine. Just dandy.
Even when the job sucked.
He liked having breakfast once or twice a week at Lindy’s, liked the view of the hills outside his office window and the steadiness of the job. He liked the town, the artists, the potters, weavers, musicians—the yogis, the psychics, and all the shops and restaurants and inns that drew the tourists in to sample the wares.
The hippies had come and settled in the sixties—God knew why his mother, who’d changed her name from Mary Ellen to Sunshine and still went by Sunny, wandered down from Pennsylvania about a decade later. And so Sunshine had charmed or corrupted—depending on who was telling the story—a young, first-year math teacher.
They’d exchanged personal vows on the banks of the river, and set up house. A few years and two babies later, Sunny had bowed to the gentle, consistent pressure only his father could exert, and had made it legal.
Brooks liked to taunt his sisters that he was the only Gleason actually born in wedlock. They rebutted that he was also the only Gleason who had to pack heat to do his job.
He settled back with his coffee, easing himself into the day by watching the goings-on outside the window.
While it was too early for most of the shops to open, The Vegetable Garden had its sign out. He tried to spread his patronage around, so he stopped in for soup now and again, but he was an unapologetic carnivore, and just couldn’t see the purpose in something like tofu disguised as meat.
The bakery—now, they were doing some business. And Cup O’ Joe likely had its counter full. February had barely turned the corner into March, but the tourists from up north often moseyed down early in the year to get out of the worst bite of winter. The Bradford pears hinted at blossoms. In a week they’d put on their show. Daffodils crowded together in sidewalk tubs, yellow as sticks of butter.
Sid Firehawk’s truck farted explosively as it drove by. On a sigh, Brooks made a mental note to give Sid one more warning to get his goddamn muffler replaced.
Drunken wife smackers and noise polluters, Brooks thought. A hell of a long way from Robbery-Homicide. But mostly it suited him. Even when it sucked.
And when it didn’t, he thought, straightening in his seat for a better view.
He could admit to himself he’d planted himself in that seat early, on the off chance she’d come to town.
Abigail Lowery of the warm brown hair, exceptional ass and air of mystery. Pretty cat-green eyes, he thought, though she mostly kept them behind sunglasses.
She had a way of walking, Abigail Lowery did, with a purpose. She never moseyed or strolled or meandered. She only came into town every couple of weeks, shopped for groceries. Always early in the day but never on the same day. On rarer occasions, she went into one of the other shops, did her business briskly.
He liked that about her. The purpose, the briskness. He thought he might like more about her, but she kept to herself in a way that made your average hermit look like a social butterfly.
She drove a big, burly, black SUV, not that she did a lot of driving around that he’d noticed.
As far as he could tell, she stayed on her own spread of land, pretty as a picture and neat as a pin, according to the FedEx and UPS guys he’d subtly pumped for information.
He knew she planted both a vegetable garden and a flower garden in the spring, had her own greenhouse and a massive bullmastiff with a brindle coat she called Bert.
She was single—at least she had no one but Bert living with her, and wore no ring. The delivery guys termed her polite and generous, with a tip on Christmas, but standoffish.
Most of the townspeople termed her odd.
“Top that off for you?” Kim, his waitress, held out the pot of coffee.
“Wouldn’t mind, thanks.”