The Fox Inheritance

  "There he is," she says, like I would know who he is. "Can you wait here? I'll just be a minute. I need to talk to Father Andre about something."

  Privately. I get it. Why doesn't she just say it? I nod and watch her walk away. I don't know why I should feel annoyed, but I do. She's entitled to private business. Maybe even an impromptu confession. Do priests still take confession?

  I walk along the edge of the lavanderia, bending to pretend I'm looking at the gargoyle spitting water from its mouth into the canal, but I sneak peeks, watch her walking, waving to Father Andre, hugging Father Andre, and then standing close to him. Everything about her body becomes tense and private--the way she wraps her arms around her waist, the way her shoulders stiffen, the way her eyes sweep the surrounding landscape. I sit on the top level of stones of the canal and watch sideways. She glances at me, and Father Andre follows her glance, turning briefly to look my way and then turning his back to me again.

  Jenna faces my direction, and I watch her lips. Unlike Gatsbro, with his hand so often cupped near his mouth, she's an easy read, articulate and deliberate.

  His name is Locke.

  Father Andre keeps shifting his weight, intermittently blocking her face and interrupting the flow of words. I try to adjust my position, but if I move too much, a tree branch blocks her face instead.

  Yes, just yesterday--

  --may need your help--

  --they still watch me closely--

  I wish the priest would stop moving.

  Could be unpredictable, and we--

  --I know you have your ways--

  I don't want him killed. That's not what I'm saying, but I--

  --eliminate if necessary--

  The priest shakes his head. What is she saying?

  --could be dangerous. We can't trust him--

  --dispose of the problem--

  The priest nods.

  Thank you.

  She looks over the priest's shoulder and sees me point-blank staring at her. I don't even try to hide it. Her eyes widen, and she says a rushed good-bye to the priest, then runs toward me, but I am already walking away.

  Yes, Jenna. I'm dangerous. No question about it.

  And it looks like you are too.

  Chapter 51

  The inside of the church is dim, lit only by a few high windows and rows of flickering candles, prayers for the dead. The air is heavy with musty incense.

  With my long legs, I easily outdistanced Jenna, and as soon as I was past the nursery wall and out of sight, I broke into a run. I slipped into the empty church, the first place I came to that could hide me.

  Yeah, in an instant, realities and truth can flip.

  Dispose of the problem. Like I'm a piece of trash. Was all of her concern--the tears, everything--just a big show so she could lure me here? Did I upset the balance in her idyllic life? She's not as transparent as I thought she was. Jenna has plenty of secrets.

  The heavy wooden door creaks open, momentarily flooding the church with light. I lean close to the confessional, hiding in its shadow. The door closes, and the dimness returns. It is Jenna. She steps forward tentatively. Her footsteps echo against the tile and smooth stucco walls.

  I hear her breaths, her temples pounding. I hear the fear. She's been caught. I stay in the shadow, watching her cautiously edge forward down the center aisle.

  She stops. Her head tilts slightly like she hears something. My breaths? I am underestimating her in so many ways. She takes one more step forward and stops again.

  "So. You read lips."

  I step out from the shadows and face her. I let the silent moment linger, feeling the power of it. I am bigger and stronger than even she knows. It is just me and her, even if her henchmen are waiting outside. We stare at each other through the dim light. "Yeah. A fringe benefit of all this extra crap stuffed into me."

  "How much did you read?"

  "Not much. Just a few words. Words like eliminate. Dispose of. Kill. Interesting vocabulary you have, Jenna."

  "Reading lips out of context can be a dangerous hobby."

  "Oh, I think I got the context all right. It looks like I've worn out my welcome already."

  "Did you get the words like monster and Gatsbro?"

  Gatsbro? I never saw his name on her lips. Nice save, Jenna.

  She takes two cautious steps closer. "That's who I was talking about, Locke."

  I remember the back of the priest's head, always shifting, blocking out her lips. I didn't see every word. I scan the perimeters of the church, looking for other doors opening, looking for dark-robed priests wielding weapons. The church is still.

  I look back at Jenna. I want to believe what she is saying. Don't be such a schmuck, Locke.

  "What is this place really, Jenna? The priests I knew didn't moonlight as hit men." She doesn't answer. I take a step closer to her. "And why are you keeping track of my descendants?" More silence. I take eight more steps until I'm an arm's distance away, towering over her. She stands her ground. "And why is someone watching you closely? What have you done?"

  She looks at me, her eyes set and her jaw rigid.

  "Your idyllic life is rapidly getting ugly. Is Kayla really yours? Or some child you snatched off the street?"

  Her hand swings out, but mine shoots up faster, and I grab her wrist when it is just inches from my face. Anger trembles through her arm. "Don't you ever bring Kayla into any of this!" she says in a low whisper that drips with threat. "Do you hear me? Because I would cut you down so fast you wouldn't know what happened. And that's if you were lucky. Kayla's where I draw the line. She's off limits."

  I don't release her wrist. I stare into her face, reading every line, every flush of color, every rigid muscle ready to pop. She would tear me in two for Kayla. I dissect her face into a thousand planes and my eyes travel over each one. Nothing is hidden. She reads faces. And I'm learning that I do, too. I hope that, like her, most of the time I get it right. For now, I only see a mixture of fear, anger, and what I think is truth. Nothing more. My grip loosens. Have I just made a complete idiot of myself? My hand falls to my side. I step away, sitting down on a pew. She draws in a deep, slow breath, and we're both silent for a long while, trying to process this new distance between us. She sits down next to me.

  "I understand," she finally says. "After what you've been through, it's hard for you to trust again. But you have to try. I am not the enemy, Locke."

  My gut tells me she isn't. But I'm not sure I should trust even my own gut. I've been wrong about everyone. When does it stop? We both stare straight ahead. I am still the outsider. There are too many secrets. She hasn't really answered anything.

  She sighs, like she has read my mind. "I established an anonymous educational trust in your name for your niece. It passed on to her children and her children's children. Call it a guilt gift. Call it whatever you want. It was nothing honorable. It couldn't make up for anything, but it was all I could do. I knew it was the kind of thing you would do if you could. That's why I kept track of them. There was nothing dark and sinister about it."

  I should be feeling sorry that I wrongly suspected Jenna, but instead I'm thinking, I had a niece, and Jenna did for her what I couldn't. I had a niece, and I never knew her. She's long dead too. I missed everything about her. Her first birthday. The color of her hair. I don't even know what her name was. Would I have made a good uncle?

  Something jumps into my throat unexpectedly and I fight to keep it from shaking loose. I draw my fingers into fists, trying to hold it in.

  Jenna misreads my action and blurts out, "I can't tell you the rest. For now, it's better that you not know. You just have to trust me. But I promise you, Father Andre is not a hit man." She reaches out and wraps both of her hands around my balled-up fist. A truce. I relax my fingers in her hands.

  I can do that. For now.

  But I'm still watching my back around Father Andre.

  Chapter 52

  There's a strong rap at the door. "You ready?" br />
  I take a last look at my face in the mirror. I've never had a beard, but after five days of not shaving, I have noticeable stubble.

  Another rap.

  I rub my hand over the bristles. Gatsbro was a fanatic about grooming. This never would have flown with him. I'm glad I don't have time to shave. Maybe I never will again. I pull a strand of hair forward so it bobs over my eye. He would hate that too.

  "Locke!"

  One thing about Allys, she saves all her patience for Kayla.

  "Five minutes," I call. I sit on the bed to put my shoes and socks on--heavy old-fashioned shoes of laces and leather. Jenna gave them to me. My old ones reeked, she said, and when she washed them, they fell apart. They were never meant for cross-country chases, mud puddles, or washing machines--only for plush estates and genteel games of lawn bowling.

  Jenna left this morning with Kayla to run an errand. She didn't tell me what it was. Before she left, she suggested I go out with Allys to where they have some workers laying irrigation pipe. "I could use the help, and some sunshine and physical labor will do you good," she said. With still no sign of Kara, or even Miesha or Dot, she saw how tightly I was strung. All I can think is that Gatsbro got them all. Maybe I should go back. Maybe that's what he's waiting for. He knows how close I am to Kara. Maybe he will just sit tight and wait for me to come to him. The not knowing stretches me thinner. Something isn't right.

  I was staring out the window, turning these thoughts over and over again in my mind, when Jenna came over and squeezed my hand just before she left. We had a wordless moment, and it filled an empty part inside me. I felt the calmness of Jenna just like I did all those times when I sought her out in that endless black hellhole. She is not the enemy, I know that, but there are still too many secrets, and I can't shake the feeling that no matter where I go I will have to watch my back for the rest of my life.

  "Okay, city boy, your pants better be on because I'm opening this door!" Allys bursts through the door. "What the hell are you doing? It's practically midday. This isn't a hotel. You're going to earn your keep. Now, put some giddy in your up, and let's go. I'll be out in the truck."

  She is already out the door. I smile as I tighten my last lace. She reminds me of a neighbor we had when I was growing up. Miss Simpson. My dad used to say she was all bark and no bite. I haven't seen Allys bite yet, but I suspect she can. I step it up, smoothing out the top blanket on my bed, making sure it is neat so Allys won't think I'm expecting hotel service. I think of Miesha calling Kara and me spoiled children. I never made my bed at the estate and rarely thought about how my clothes were washed or reappeared in my closet, neat and ready to wear. At home, I had to do all those things. My mom used to make a joke out of it if I assumed too much. She would talk about our imaginary maid--Rosie has the day off, so if you want clean underwear, you better get cracking. I notice my coat, freshly washed and hanging on the back of the door. It is not cold or rainy, but I slip it on anyway. I like the idea of being prepared for anything, especially since I don't know exactly where Allys is taking me. Just before I walk out the door, I pull open the top dresser drawer to grab the pack that Miesha gave me. It's gone.

  I look around the room to make sure I didn't already take it out. A quick survey tells me I didn't. I pull out the next drawer and then the next.

  There.

  In the bottom drawer.

  I try to think back. I'm certain I put it in the top drawer. I lift it out, wondering if Kayla might have wandered in here. She sometimes comes in to sift through the basket of shells and other treasures that she and Jenna have collected at the shore.

  I hear the truck horn honking, and I run out the door. I've never done a single day of hard physical labor in my life. My parents always kept me busy with my books and studies, and the chores I had were never any harder than vacuuming or washing the windows. I guess today will break my standing record.

  Allys rolls her eyes when I slide into the cab of the truck.

  "I know," I say. "City boy."

  "What's the purse for?"

  I shrug. "It's a pack. Water. Protein cake. Getaway car."

  She snorts. "Thinking ahead. That's good."

  "For a city boy."

  She smiles. "You do know I like to tease, right?"

  "Really? I wouldn't have guessed."

  "Smart city boy."

  From the street she turns onto a narrow dirt road just past the house that could easily be missed because of the overgrowth surrounding it. The truck bounces along the deeply rutted road, and Allys seems oblivious to the numerous times the fenders scrape bottom. It's an old truck with none of the bells and whistles of Dot's cab. It even uses a key in the ignition. I assume it's mostly utilitarian, which is maybe why Allys is not worried about dents and scratches.

  I don't know much about Allys's history, except that she is as old as Jenna. As old as me. And yet she's as clear skinned and young as a seventeen-year-old girl. Still. After all this time. How much time do I have? My stomach churns, and I wonder how Gatsbro got it all so right. How did he know that when I was nervous or surprised or simply hit with something too big for me to handle, my stomach was the first to betray me and tell me, Locke, your world isn't right? Or maybe I give Gatsbro too much credit, and he had nothing to do with it. He never knew me, after all. Maybe my stomach clenching is just all saved memory. I take a deep breath to calm my stomach, even though the message is correct. My world isn't right.

  "Like the view?"

  I look away. I thought I was being discreet in looking at her. She must be able to see out through her ears. "Sorry," I say. "I'm still--" It's too hard to explain.

  "Still trying to take it all in?"

  "Something like that."

  "Give yourself time. It took me a while. Ha! I guess that's an understatement. I'm still trying to figure it all out." She breaks loose with all the things I was wondering about, telling me about the illness that shut down her organs, how she betrayed Jenna and told her own parents to report Jenna and her family, and how Allys's parents instead sought out Jenna's parents to help Allys in the same way.

  "That must have been some U-turn for you. How did you feel when you woke and discovered what they had done?"

  "Spitting mad. Confused. Sometimes grateful. There probably wasn't an emotion I didn't go through. Mostly I was a pain in the ass."

  I feign surprise. "You?"

  "I know. Hard to believe, isn't it?"

  "What made you change your mind?"

  "A boy with the most gorgeous green eyes I had ever seen."

  "Good old-fashioned lust?"

  She laughs. "Plenty of it." She makes a sharp turn and parks the truck in the shade of a large oak tree. "And life," she says in a more serious tone. She turns to look at me. "Life changed my mind. In little bits and pieces, it grabbed hold of me. After the first six months, I flipped back through all that had happened in that short time and all that I would have missed. My first kiss, my first chocolate peach, things as simple as rainfall on my skin--"

  "A chocolate peach?"

  "Oh, Lord, you haven't had one yet? We'll have to remedy that. But later. Let's go see how the trenches are coming." She swings open the truck door and hops out. I grab my pack and do the same. She pauses and takes a second look at me as she reaches into the bed of the truck for a bag.

  "Something wrong?" I ask.

  "What's with the coat?"

  I pull on the collar. "This? Nothing. What about it?"

  "You look like you're part of the Resistance."

  I didn't think there still was a Resistance. Miesha made it sound like it died with her husband. "How do you figure?" I say. "These are free and common. Government issue."

  "Some people wear them for protection, others with purpose. Huge difference. The homeless roll them up in their packs when they don't need them, and when they do wear them, they pull them tight against the weather. You wear yours like you own the planet."

  Swagger, Locke, like you own the planet
. I remember when I put it on the first time at the train station. I liked what I saw. Something dark and dangerous. I needed to feel dangerous and not like a seventeen-year-old kid on the run. It was just a coat, but I knew it was something more too. Maybe it did feel like a statement. But I'm not part of any Resistance. I don't have time for other people's troubles. I have enough of my own.

  "I'll take it off if it bothers you."

  She shrugs. "Doesn't bother me. Just curious. Leave it on."

  I take it off. I unzip my pack to put it away, but just as I begin to stuff it inside, something catches my eye. Something sharp and shiny. A knife. The butcher knife from Jenna's kitchen counter. How did--

  "What's wrong?" Allys asks.

  I look up at her. Did she put it in there? Jenna? Surely not Kayla. Am I being set up for something? Or did I get it myself during one of my lapses? I steady myself against the truck and finish stuffing my coat in the pack. "Nothing," I answer. "Let's go."

  As we walk, I plan on ditching the knife as soon as I can--or maybe I should just return it to the kitchen. I hold the pack closer to my side. Who put it there?

  In the distance I see a grassy hill dotted with wildflowers. Maybe that's where Jenna gathered the wildflowers for Lily's grave. At the base of the hill is a tilled field and a truck. Just beyond that are two men lifting a long pipe and walking it to a trench. A third man stands near the truck. Allys explains that she and Jenna want to plant another vegetable garden, maybe even a few citrus trees, but they need to get some water flow to the perimeters of this field.

  "And we're always trying to find some sort of work for the Non-pacts who camp out on the edge of the property."

  "You allow strangers to live on the property?"

  "They're not exactly all strangers. A lot just pass through, but some have been around for quite a while."