Chapter 11
11
“ H e helped my son, you know,” Roxanne said after they sat down for dinner.
“Jackson?” Lina asked.
“All of them. Well, there were only eight at the time. Falcons, that is,” she replied.
Lina glanced at Jackson. He forked up a bite of the tender chicken and popped it into his mouth; his eyes focused on the food.
She returned her attention to Roxanne-freakin-Kelly. Her mother would have adored meeting her. They’d watched all her movies—multiple times. Hollywood had hyped and exaggerated the life of a spy, but Roxanne’s character was the first female lead written as smart, funny, fearless, tough, and sexy as hell. And Lina would be lying if she said the icon hadn’t factored into her decision to join the CIA.
“Five years ago, Alex, my son, my only child…not that it would have mattered if I’d had twelve, he was still my son,” Roxanne continued. “He was in a toxic relationship with a man who led a cult. The kind of person who preys on children of the wealthy. I’d been trying to get him out for two years, but he wouldn’t have it. He’d convinced himself that Dieter—that was the man’s name—loved him. What Dieter loved was control and my son’s money.
“As a last-ditch effort to get Alex to see Dieter for who he really was, I shut down access to his trust fund.” A sadness crept into her eyes. “I’m not sure it was the best decision I ever made. It worked out in the end, but…Alex suffered. Dieter didn’t care for his cash faucet being turned off. It took less than a month for him to turn violent. Three months after that, Alex realized the kind of man he’d fallen for. Dieter literally ran a cult, and they lived in the middle of nowhere in eastern Oregon. Alex couldn’t exactly walk out. It took him a few weeks, but he finally got a message to me.” She took a healthy sip of her drink. “I was helpless, though. As fun as playing a spy in the movies was, I had no real skills to help him myself. A friend told me about them,” she said, lifting her wineglass in Jackson’s direction. “I hired them to help. Two weeks later, my son was home. Healing.”
“You didn’t hire us, Rox. We do what we do for free,” Jackson said.
“And what do you do?” Lina asked. Roxanne’s story confirmed her earlier suspicion that there was more to Jackson than he let on, and she had no interest in hiding her curiosity.
“Then call it a substantial donation to the cause, if you like,” Roxanne answered.
“It was and we do. It helped a lot of people get back on their feet,” Jackson said.
“Didn’t use a cent for yourselves, did you?”
Jackson rolled his eyes. “As if you thought we would.”
Roxanne laughed. “No. I wish you had. You earned it. But I knew you wouldn’t.”
Lina cleared her throat.
“Sorry, dear. Old argument,” Roxanne said. “The Falcons are part of a network who help people like my son—people in abusive relationships—escape. How many have you helped in the six years you’ve been doing it?”
Jackson looked more annoyed by the question than the fact that he’d been outed. “Too many,” he said. “There’s never an end.” Pain flashed across his face so fast that Lina almost missed it.
She glanced at Roxanne, who studied Jackson. She seemed to notice it as well, but she wore a look of curiosity rather than commiseration. Lina suspected she didn’t know the cause either and wasn’t sure she wanted to.
Jackson shifted and took a sip of his wine before turning his attention to the wall of windows. Dark as pitch and storming outside, he could see nothing but their reflections. Although Lina thought it more likely that he saw his history—whatever caused that flash of pain—rather than their images.
“I’m going to get the tin,” she announced. Jackson whipped his head around. Roxanne raised her glass. “Now’s as good a time as any,” she said, pushing back from the table.
Klaus ambled into the room and hovered in the corner. Now that she knew he wore felted shoes, she was onto him. And having tuned her senses into the changes in the air and energy in the room, she’d known he lingered outside the door, waiting.
She winked at him before making her way down the long hallway leading to the guest suite. Roxanne had only prepared one bedroom, and although the house probably had many empty ones, she and Jackson hadn’t bothered asking for a second. They’d shared space before—the night of the shooting—and the custom-made bed was larger than a king.
When she returned, a white cloth lay spread in the space between her and Jackson. She didn’t recall Klaus being in the room when she mentioned they’d dug the tin up, but she wasn’t going to ask.
Setting the cigar box down, she took a deep breath. Until an hour ago, keeping the box hidden, something only she and Jackson knew about, felt critical. But when Roxanne pointed out that life was too short to get worked up about other people’s secrets, a crack formed in her thinking. The statement wasn’t always true—sometimes secrets saved lives, and whether to keep them or share them could change a situation on a dime. But these were her dad’s secrets. And someone had already killed for them. Maybe the best path forward wasn’t keeping them in the dark but shedding light on them instead. Strategically, of course.
A small clump of dirt fell onto the white cloth as she nudged the top off. Jackson’s eyes followed her movements, and Roxanne leaned forward. Setting the top down, Lina eyed the box. Tissue covered the contents, and she gently pulled it out and set it aside.
Her gaze took in the items lying inside. Beside her, Jackson tilted his head.
“Well?” Roxanne asked before taking a healthy gulp of her drink. Klaus walked over and refilled it while still in her hand.
Rather than answer, Lina shifted the tin to make room on the cloth. Pulling out the first item, a little green plastic army figure, she set it upright. A beat passed as they stared at it.
“Is there more?” Roxanne asked.
Lina nodded and set the remaining items on the cloth one by one: a child’s Hot Wheels, a spool of black thread, a small plastic magnifying glass, six keys, a receipt from a store she didn’t recognize with a number written on the back, and two postcards, one from Orcas Island, Washington, and one from Murphys, California, not far from Mystery Lake.
With everything lined up, Jackson lifted the box and examined it, tapping the bottom and sides. He did the same for the lid before setting them both back on the table.
“Just a tin,” he said.
The three of them eyed the collection. Klaus might have been studying it as well, but as he stood in the corner in the dark behind her, Lina couldn’t be certain.
She picked up the postcards, turning them both over. No writing, no address, no stamp or postmark. They looked as if they’d been plucked right off the shelf.
“Invisible ink?” Roxanne suggested. Lina held them up so the light reflected off the blank sides but saw no indications of ink. Grabbing one of the taper candles on the table, she gently passed them back and forth over the flame. Lemon juice and heat—the childlike, but surprisingly useful, method for hiding messages. After a minute, though, it was clear her father hadn’t left her a hidden note.
“What about the receipt?” Jackson asked.
She picked it up and read over it. “It’s from a restaurant. Someone ordered an omelet and a farmer’s breakfast. There’s a name, but it’s faded, and I can’t make it out.”
“What about a date?” Roxanne asked.
Lina scanned the paper again, frowning. “June. Twenty-two years ago.”
“Do you recognize the numbers?” Jackson asked.
She flipped the receipt over. “It’s only four digits. Too short for a phone number, and if it’s an address, without a street or even town, it’s not very useful.”
The three—maybe four—of them eyed the items. Unsure what to make of the random assortment, Lina lined them up: the figure, car, magnifying glass, and spool of thread on one line, below that the six keys, and last, the three paper items.
“I don’t know what this collection is meant to tell me,” she finally said. “I didn’t know my father. Not really. Nor did he know me. And I have no idea if these things had meaning to him or if he thought they’d have meaning to me.” She shrugged, frustration rolling through her. If her dad intended for her to find a message, why had he made it so esoteric? Did he honestly believe she’d divine his meaning?
Jackson set a hand on the back of her neck and gently massaged it. She took a deep breath and did a quick body scan, releasing the tension she held in her shoulders and back. The frustration still lingered, but after acknowledging it, she focused on her options: either figure out the puzzle or let it go. Letting go wasn’t in her nature, so with another deep breath, she metaphorically stepped back and looked at the items objectively.
She’d visited both places the postcards depicted but, with the exception of driving through Murphys after leaving Mystery Lake, not for years. Decades even. She frowned.
“What?” Jackson asked, his hand still warm on her body.
“Children’s toys and two postcards from places I visited as a kid,” she said, tapping the cards. “A possible link, but I’m not sure how. And the keys don’t fit.”
“The receipt might,” Roxanne said.
“It’s from twenty-two years ago,” Jackson said. “You would have been what, ten?”
“Eleven,” she corrected.
They fell into silence again, and a minute ticked by before she felt Klaus moving in behind her. Without a word, he rearranged the small toys, setting the car first in line, followed by the thread, the army figure, and the magnifying glass last.
Lina studied the line, as did the others.
After a beat, Jackson inhaled. “Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy,” he said, pointing at each of the items. Assigning “tinker” to the car was a bit of a stretch, but not much of one, considering she “tinkered” with her bike all the time.
“Does that mean anything to you?” Roxanne asked.
Slowly, she nodded. “My dad’s favorite book. He read it over and over and over again.”
“Maybe he wanted you to find his copy?” Jackson suggested.
“Maybe,” she conceded. “The only problem is, it’s now part of the crime scene.”